by Maxey, Phil
“You gonna be quiet?”
Josh nodded.
“Good.” Finn turned the key in the ignition, firing up the engine then pushed down on the gas, causing the wheels to spin slightly, then grip.
Josh fell back in the seat as the car rapidly took off.
CHAPTER THREE
11: 53 a.m. Heavercroft School.
The heat from the noonday sun was doing its best to eat away at what the blizzard left behind. The frozen carcasses of twisted, warped chunks of metal sat across the school’s parking lot, the remains of vehicles brought there just days before but the two newcomers sat unaffected in the road. Jess and some others stood near the school entrance.
Sam walked forward and hugged her father, being careful not to squeeze too tight. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” He looked at his wife, his expression betraying his opinion that his daughter should be going with him to Newgrove, but as he pulled back it was a smile Sam saw.
“Make sure to get your hand fixed up,” she said.
“I will… Stay close to your mother. Don’t do anything dumb, okay?”
She rolled her eyes then nodded and walked towards the pickup.
The Keller’s watched their daughter climb in the backseats where Sanchez was already seated. Vance being in the driver’s.
Jess looked back at the shattered doors of the entrance, resisting shaking her head.
Landon held her hand, pulling her attention back to him. “The virus is dying or dead. We’re almost through this thing.” He moved closer, embracing her, she doing the same. “Don’t try and fight when you find the things. I know you’ll want to. I would feel the same, but you have to wait for us to find the military and bring them to you.”
They separated. Jess briefly, awkwardly smiling.
“I mean it Jess. We’re so close. I’ll catch up with you and we’ll get our son back, together.”
“I’ll do what is best for Josh.”
He smiled. “I know.”
They both looked at the four graves just tens of feet away. “I want to return here once it’s over. They deserve… more,” she said.
He nodded. “Strange we never found Arlo’s… body.” He snorted. “He’s probably out there somewhere in a new van, scavenging old computer games or something…” He started to speak again but the horn from the truck bellowed out. “Guess we better get this journey started.” They walked forward through the snow. “The radio at the Newgrove station has quite some coverage. Should be able to reach you when you find them in Denver.”
They both reached the end of the lot. “I’ll keep in touch.”
“Find him, Jess.”
She nodded and walked to the pickup, he the same to the truck.
*****
1: 22 p.m. Western Missiouri.
It had only been five some days but sprouts of green were already breaking free from cracks in the highway. There was scant sign of the storm which hit the eastern part of the state, but snow was beginning to fall from a largely gray sky as the pickup and truck hurtled down the four-lane road.
Jess glanced in the rear mirror. First at the truck behind and then to her daughter, her face reflecting the pale light from outside, her features more youthful than before. An image of death flickered in Jess’s mind, trying to take root, trying to take her back to the hell that was the secret labs beneath her former workplace. Since their escape she had pushed what she and Scott had discovered to the back of her mind as well as what her daughter had become. A thing being experimented on in a glass cylinder. A scene from a horror movie.
She wondered if she survived the next twenty-four hours, whether in years to come she would put what she saw down to an overactive imagination, that her mind was exaggerating the insanity of it all. That she wouldn’t be kept awake by the fear of nightmares.
She could hope…
Sam couldn’t remember much of her time with Joan or Rackham, just particular moments and feelings of what must have been and Jess didn’t want to push it. She had got her daughter back, that’s what mattered and if those memories remained buried that wasn’t a bad thing.
Landon argued for Sam to go with him, but she refused without giving a good reason why and both parents lacked the energy or authority to force her to do anything she didn’t want to. Jess also suspected something else, that even though her own abilities had waned with the dying of the virus, perhaps her daughter’s had sustained, and if that were true she might be crucial to helping get her brother back. The trick was to keep Sam out of harm’s way. Jess wasn’t going to get one kid back just to lose another… again.
Not again…
The convoy slowed somewhat to weave around abandoned vehicles. She must have passed them a few times before, having traveled this highway over the past few days but she couldn’t remember them. Couldn’t remember much of the previous week other than wanting it to be over.
“Look over there,” said Sanchez, looking to the right of the highway.
Jess had already noticed the lack of winter trees and shrubs, the ground having been hacked into deep ruts but presumed it was part of land clearing for building work. But as the convoy slowed she then noticed the electricity and phone pylons laying like matchsticks across the ground. A tangle of metal cables and splintered wooden posts. The piles of rubble and masonry, former single-story buildings, confirmed what was obvious.
“At least we know we’re going the right way,” said Sanchez.
She glanced in the mirror again. Sam wasn’t paying attention to the trail of destruction, her eyes were closed.
CHAPTER FOUR
1: 53 p.m. Central Kansas. Highway 70.
“Please be gas… Please be gas…”
Arlo’s eyes flicked between the truck stop, gas station and the fuel gauge which had been showing empty for twenty minutes. At the edge of the almost flat horizon sat a brown haze, the mark of what had recently torn through that part of the landscape, but he wasn’t bothered about the things, they were long gone. He was bothered about being marooned in the middle of nowhere and he really didn’t want to rely upon the remaining ten bottles of beer to stop him from dying of thirst. The buzz from the first two was just beginning to wear off, the alcohol playing a part no doubt in why he got into this madcap idea of following the monsters in the first place.
The engine coughed, the car jolting.
“Shit… no… no…” He tapped the plastic fuel gauge, hoping fumes would be enough to propel the car along the exit off the highway, but instead the engine responded by cutting out, the vehicle shuddering then gliding gently forward.
“Come on, come on!” He rocked back and forth in the leather seat, hoping his motion would get him a few inches closer to the small road which ran up to the station’s entrance.
The car hit a slight incline and promptly stopped bringing forth an eruption of expletives from the driver.
Arlo sat with his head on the steering wheel, then lifted it, looking at the station’s forecourt and the lot behind the store which was surprisingly full of other vehicles.
“Okay… this is okay. I get a can. I fill it with gas. Easy. No things around here.” He looked to the horizon. The cloud of dust was dissipating but it would be easy to pick up the trail. He pushed open his door, immediately regretting not taking his jacket with him the night before and stood on the concrete and closed the door. Rubbing his upper arms he trekked forward, over the muddy, faded grass then onto the concrete of the forecourt, taking a direct route to the nearest of the gas pumps.
Stopping, he scoured the store, looking into the gloom beyond the glass door and windows then slid his view across the ice machine, car wash, soda dispensers and the cafe to the left and the cars parked in front of it. All was quiet. No wind blew as he gently picked up the pump then pulled the trigger. A drip fell from the nozzle. He shook it and tried again with the same result then quickly walked to the other seven.
He swore under his breath on not finding what he needed. �
�Looks like I’m going to have to siphon some.”
A white pickup, red sedan and gray van were close by options, but he needed something to put the gas in and quickly made his way to the store, pausing at the entrance to look inside. On not seeing any danger, he slowly pushed the door open, watching and listening for anything to jump from behind the aisles and when nothing did, ran to what he needed, a plastic fuel canister, pulling it off the shelf, unscrewing the cap then turning back…
A new cloud of dust caught his attention. This one was further to the right of the first. Smaller, more compact. He walked closer to the large window. Maybe three, four miles out?
A rack of candy bars sat above a row of bottled water.
“Ah, perfect.”
He grabbed a bottle, broke the seal and took a good few mouthfuls…
He leaned into the glass again, straining to better see across the fields to the north. The dust cloud now contained streaks and darker patches, almost as if it were—
He stuffed the candy in his pocket along with the water bottle and barged the exterior door open, taking the fuel canister with him, all the time tracking the cloud of mud and rock that was growing in size.
Running to the van, he realized he had no tubing and pivoted, running back into the store, grabbing some off the far wall and running back outside while glancing at what was hurtling across the beige fields. As the brown cloud passed a tall white structure, it tilted to one side. Possibly a water tower.
“Shit.”
He ran to the van, pulling the fuel cap off and pushed the tubing into the hole and immediately sucked on the opposite end. Nothing emerged within the clear plastic tube. He tried again while leaning back around the van to try and see…
The creature was now visible within the muck it was sending into the sky around it. A mass of legs were propelling a heavyset, dark brown body with a lizard-like head which swayed as the thing sprinted. It was as if an alligator had grown to the size of a horse and gained similar height. Nothing about it was even remotely human. For a fraction of a moment he was captured by the fury of the thing bearing down on him.
“No… no…”
He pulled the tube and ran to the sedan but the cap was already open and ran to the last vehicle, the white pickup, flicking the cap free and… It was obvious he didn’t have time to grab the gasoline, get to his car, refuel and leave before the thing would be at the forecourt. A new plan was needed. He pulled his shirt over his arms then shoulders, twisting it into a strip, then pushed it into the opening, the fumes rising from the hole confirming this vehicle did indeed have gasoline. The thing was now scampering over the nearby fields, only a few hundred yards out. He turned and ran back to the store, scrambling across the tiled floor, knocking chips and soda bottles from their stands, grabbed a pocket lighter from the counter and ran back to the pickup. Without hesitation he thumbed the small plastic latch, igniting a flame then set his shirt alight.
The thunder of hoofs or claws, he wasn’t sure which was now filling the air. Whatever concoction of mismatched genetics was about to reach the truck stop wanted him dead. A straggler from the main group that had somehow detected him. As the flame grew across his piece of clothing, he backed away. Timing was going to be crucial. If he turned and ran, the creature would detour and the explosion wouldn’t be enough to put it down, but if he stayed too long near the pickup…
The thing was almost as big as the white vehicle, as it buffeted a streetlight, then crashed through a fence bordering the property. Arlo could smell its breath as its leathery skin glistened in the afternoon—
The time flying backwards through the air was thankfully brief but came without warning and he crashed painfully into the soda dispenser, falling to the concrete sidewalk, his head buzzing, his face stinging from the flash of heat.
He looked up, frantically trying to locate the creature, but a groan bellowed out giving him its location. The pickup roared with flames, a door and parts of the rear now lying elsewhere across the lot.
Arlo got to his feet, feeling momentarily dizzy and staggered forward. His side feeling wet, he placed his fingers on a spot of blood but the source was going to have to wait until he knew the thing was down. Moving around the pumps, burned appendages and torso then finally the thing’s head came into view. Its charcoal black neck coiled in his direction, its mouth opening, letting out a growl, but part of it was still burning. The thing wasn’t going to be chasing him anytime soon but he had seen them come back from worse damage.
He lifted his t-shirt. A red gash, an inch long was seeping blood. It stung but it wasn’t going to kill him. He looked across the fields and the ruts the thing had created through the mud. The other creatures must have heard the explosion. Taking a wide birth around what was left of the thing, he walked as fast as his aching limbs would allow and spotted two more cars. A compact and another pickup. The smaller vehicle’s door was open…
He broke into a jog, quickly arriving at the blue car’s driver’s side, and immediately let out a breath in relief at seeing the keys dangling from the ignition.
CHAPTER FIVE
2: 33 p.m. Eastern outskirts of Kansas city.
The buildup of abandoned vehicles told everyone they were nearing the big city as the highway dissected apartment complexes, retail parks and shopping malls, spread across a dull brown landscape of patches of trees and faded fields.
“We can go south around the city, if you want?” said Vance to Jess.
“No, I want to see the city.”
“Okay.”
The small convoy weaved between the trucks, sedans and SUV’s as large multi-storey buildings reflecting a watery sun, became apparent on the horizon.
“You, er… sense anything?” said Sanchez from the back seat.
She had been trying to since they moved past the sign mentioning the city but just felt exhaustion. No buzzing or headaches, nothing to indicate anything of danger was nearby.
“Hey,” said Sanchez, looking to their left at a huge parking lot.
The radio in Jess’s lap crackled, followed by Landon’s voice. “Everyone seeing what’s in the lot? Over.”
She nodded. “We do. Over.”
Between the tiny vehicles sitting in neat rows were other things. Lumps of festering organic material, some as big as the cars. But these weren’t monsters to be feared, but the remains of them.
They were on an overpass and Vance slowed then stopped the pickup, Esther doing the same with the truck behind, almost everyone getting out and walking to the side wall.
“There are hundreds of them,” said Brad, as Agatha jumped down from the cabin, struggling to stop Donnie and Syd from pulling her forward with the leashes she held. He glanced at her. “Don’t go far.” She frowned.
Landon walked close to his wife. He would have offered her his binoculars but knew she didn’t need them and scoured the landscape through the eyepieces.
Jess strained to see what he already could, which were countless dark brown patches across the sidewalks and lots.
“You were right about them dying…” said Tracey to Vance. He remained quiet.
Jess glanced at Landon. “Can I use the binoculars?”
He looked at her, a little shocked. “Sure,” and handed them to her.
She adjusted the dial and looked as deep into the city as she could from her vantage point, twenty or so feet above ground level. The lumps of decaying matter stretched all the way back, between the beige, cream and red brick sky scrapers, littering the streets and sidewalks. Shifting her view closer, she focused on the parking lot just a hundred yards away and a pile of something, studying it in the early afternoon sun. A cool breeze wafted over her bringing with it a faint odor of rot, pinging memories she’d rather not have. Within the eyepieces, the mass of tissue, bone and sinew was static. Nothing stirred within its disjointed textures.
The scene was a victory of sorts. The virus which had caused such suffering was gone, most of the creatures it bore, the same but
no part of her could celebrate. She turned to the others. “We need to get back on…” Toby was wondering around the back of the truck. “What’s Toby doing?” she asked, but before Landon or anyone else could answer, one then both dogs began barking which was followed by a child’s screams.
The small crowd ran past the vehicles, immediately spotting a van they had passed further down the slope. Agatha was running back towards them. “It’s moving! It’s moving!” she yelled. Brad took the leashes from her as Scott, Vance and Landon moved towards the white vehicle. Silver peeked through gouges in its paintwork and they walked cautiously towards the two rear doors, which rocked on their hinges. All three smelled what the interior space contained and Scott raised his weapon as they moved around the back, Jess joining them.
A heap of bony protrusions sat within a mound of brown skin and flesh. Multiple bloodshot eyes blinked and rotated in their direction. A hand or perhaps a claw extended in their direction then gave up and collapsed back into the moist surface. Those watching almost felt sorry for it.
Jess walked away, back up the hill. “Like I said, let’s leave.”
*****
3: 52 p.m. Outskirts of Denver. Highway 70.
Josh looked out at the long shadows cast from neighborhoods mixed in amongst greenery and beige fields. He vaguely recognized the southeast extremities of his home city and couldn’t help feel a tinge of excitement, despite being with a crazy man with super powers. The creatures were gone, left behind, not needed he figured and as the early evening gloom descended on the shopping malls and hotels, he started to see the others. The ones that had died and become… well he wasn’t sure what monsters became when they died, but scattered across the sidewalks and parking lots were piles of brown mush. Some were not even that, being reduced to just dark stains. In a few weeks all traces of what he had been running from would be gone, only existing in his nightmares. The world wiped clean ready to start anew…
